Obama’s CTO Nominee Offers Some Thoughts

President Barack Obama’s pick to be the nation’s first chief technology officer, Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh Chopra, made his first public remarks on what he’d do in the new post during a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday.

“We will apply the most innovative technologies to our most important challenges – bending the health care cost curve, optimizing the energy grid to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, delivering an educational system focused on student excellence with special emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, protecting our nation’s critical infrastructure, and building the high-wage, high-growth jobs in all corners of our country,” Chopra said during the hearing. (He was, as might guess from from that mouthful, reading prepared remarks.)

Chopra got just one question (on using technology to improve health care) -– to the disappoint of a dozen or so family members who’d crammed into the room. His former boss, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, gave him a glowing recommendation. “He’s a bit of a whirlwind and I’m sure he’ll bring that energy to his new position,” Warner said.

Senate Commerce Committee members said they hope to vote on Chopra’s confirmation on Wednesday, along with four other nominees, including Randolph Babbitt to head the Federal Aviation Administration.

Besides being the U.S.’s first CTO, Chopra will serve as associate director in the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. Despite the impressive titles and his rhetoric about “harnessing the power and potential of new technologies to extend new opportunity to more Americans,” its not entirely clear what Chopra will actually do and his first task may simply be to define his position inside the administration.

That’s in sharp contrast to his friend, Vivek Kundra, the U.S.’s chief information officer, who’s basically in charge of overseeing other federal agency CIOs from his perch inside the White House Office of Management and Budget. He’s also overseeing efforts to put more information online via sites like the soon-to-be unveiled Data.gov. Continue reading on Washington Wire